Towards Unknown Caves

Upon our return from Mantka Riiba’s camp we had picked up provisions, ropes, torches and other bits and pieces we would require for our journey south before bedding down for the night. I had spent the rest of the evening reunited with Anataea and although few words were spoken the music we created between the two of us was all-encompassing, eternal and reminiscent of days past. Deep like our friendship, high like the stakes we had faced together, vast like the network built and longing for all the lives missed.
 
Not long after dawn on the next morning, I met with my friends at the southern gate to head towards Phandalin. However, while all of us were carrying our respective loads, Archie appeared without any pack or gear. As much as it visibly tore him apart to say, he explained he would have to help his master in the shop for the next few weeks. Orsik was stunned by the intricate design Archie had come up with for Ori and Voithos and proudly wanted to teach the young man further techniques to bring his new-found companions to perfection. He just bade us to bring some more of the star-gold he had found in the lost mine which he would need for some parts of his machinery. Leaving him behind pained us just as much, if not more, than the boy himself. He had grown very fond to all of us, socially awkward as he may be. His brilliant mind, nimble hands and daring inventions had contributed massively to all we had accomplished thus far. But even stripped of all his abilities, Archie was just one of the most likable humans I have ever met. His quirks just added to a fine character, someone who cared deeply for his friends once he had the courage to make them. Nysqwen especially, who had been somewhat like an older sister to him was clearly hesitant to leave without him. But unfortunately, we did not have all the time in the world to complete our businesses with the expectations of the Neverwinterian council now lying heavy on our shoulders. And it would certainly not be the end of our friendship, nor our companionship. Once he was free again, laid aside the burdens that held him in their grip, we would welcome him in our midst with open arms and tears of joy. When we turned around on a hill almost two miles out of the city, I believed to catch a glimpse of a small figure and a metal contraption standing on the city wall and keeping watch.
 
Our travels were unhindered, the weather that of a nice, not too warm summer day. It was a relief to see more people back on the road, trade and travel were picking up again after the dark days of the rat plague. The smell of the sea drifted on light breezes inland, rustling through the trees lining the High Road. Time flew as Grum entertained us with circumlocutory stories of his youth and adventures with the stone seeker brothers. Towards the evening we stopped off at the familiar farm of Bor and his family who welcomed us warmly and provided food and lodging for the night. With the first light of the next day, we were on the road again, off to another uneventful day of travels this time more filled with music to spare Teynos the headaches when Grum’s stories eventually became more and more convoluted and close to dusk we finally reached Phandalin.
Entering Stonehill Inn, a wave of joyful cheers led by Toblen branded over us. Our actions had not been forgotten and the townsfolk were eager to hear what had been going on in Neverwinter and if the horror indeed had passed. Until late in the night we shared stories, food and drink with the people, until only few remained as work would not pause on the next morning. Despite the late hour the door opened once more. Townmaster Harbin looked just as stressed as last we saw him, the man seemed constantly at unease. But when behind him Halia Thornton entered the room, all cheerful banter amongst ourselves came to an equally restless silence. The woman brushed Harbin to the side, fury in her eyes as she asked us to explain ourselves. It had come to her attention that while she was out of town we had sniffed around in the basement of her Miner’s Exchange and to top it off had broken into her home. I did my best to keep my voice steady when I responded that everything we had done had been sanctioned by the law with Harbin as its representative. The escape of a certain criminal had led to our investigations rather than ill will. Fuming, Halia slowly turned towards the townmaster who wide eyed looked at me, his face white as bed linen. He murmured something like he had something urgent to attend to, striding quickly out the door. With one final glance at us, Halia followed behind the man into the night. Fearing for the man’s life, we followed and found him pinned to a wall by Halia as she hissed something at him. As we approached, she said that the last word in this matter had not been spoken and began to leave. Instilling my words with a few fine strands of Mystra’s gift I asked her what in the nine hells she thought had been going on. Mid-step she stopped and over her shoulder answered that framing her for the escape of a prisoner was not a smart idea on our parts. Then she continued marching towards her home. Kyla shouted if she would remember our last conversation on the High Road or if that had not been her in the first place but if she heard her, she did not react and just vanished in the dark.
Harbin had barricaded himself in his house by now and through the door exclaimed he would not want to speak with us. When we mentioned, it might not be the best idea to hide alone in his house with someone as raging and as dangerous as Halia Thornton around, upon which he opened the door just enough so he could poke his head out to explain what had been going on. He said that Halia had approached him and claimed we would intend to frame her for the escape and broke into her home in her absence. He was too scared of her to object to that despite what he already knew about the incident, thus the escalation this evening. As nothing would be resolved this night, we decided to bed down in our rooms, holding watch through the night and speaking with Halia on the next day. Perhaps Kyla could provide her divine power to have a truthful conversation with one another.
 
Fortunately, no further disruptions occurred during the night. Grum and I would head towards the Miner’s Exchange to see what Halia had to say with a bit of a breather after yesterday. The others would in the meantime restock so that we could continue our travels on the same day. Kyla laid her hand upon my shoulder just before we left, searching for my gaze, and wished me the Queens luck with our negotiations. A strange, alien and somewhat cold, yet comforting clarity overcame me. A silent promise that my tongue should have a hard time betraying me during our conversation, a gift from the goddess I hardly knew anything about. Giving her a thankful nod and smile, reverting my eyes for a split second to their real appearance, we headed out to meet with the guildmaster.
The Exchange was mostly empty, the prospectors likely off to their individual claims fuelled by the spark of fresh energy that the rediscovery of the lost mine had caused. We found Halia Thornton behind the desk in her private office where she greeted us with little excitement in her voice. To the best of our abilities, we explained our version of the story, from the mysterious vanishing of the black spider all the way to the pieces of evidence we had found back then. However, recognizing that certain elements did not add up, we apologized for our intrusion and our accusations. She in turn renewed her explanation of her view of things but seemed more receptive to our explanations today. She seemed to understand that our actions had not been directed against her personally and surely, she could see that following all leads available at the time we were misled into believing she was involved with the escape. We came to the agreement that while a certain mistrust had been built up on both sides, we were not enemies in this matter and might benefit from working alongside each other, potentially collaborating in the future where it would hold merit to both sides. It was certainly a benefit in this conversation to be physically unable to sweat profusely and I only allowed the shaking in my hands to set in once the door of the Exchange closed behind our exit. With this matter settled for the time being, we finally were ready to continue our journey into the mountains south of the village.
 
Our first day of travel proved to be unobstructed, Grum’s affinity to the mountains paid off as he took over the role of leading us towards their feet through patches of lush forests and fields of rubble barring any vegetation. As dusk was approaching, he found for us a small crevice between two protruding rock slants where we erected our tents and kindled a small fire. With how good of a pace, we had made this day, we could be almost sure to reach our destination on the morrow. Thus, we bedded down quickly, all of us eager to see what this mapped cave would hold.
It was in the middle of the night that Kyla and Teynos suddenly shook us all awake. A strange rumbling and grinding sound grew slowly louder. At first, it was hard to place where it was coming from and when we figured it out it was almost too late: With a thunderous crack the ground behind us exploded and from the dust emerged a large beast, covered in thick, armour-like plates of grey material. A long snout ended in a gigantic maw with grinding, square teeth. The creature stood on its hind legs, its front limbs that ended in large shovel-like claws in the air. Kyla immediately summoned her spiritual mace while Teynos sprinted forward, fists flying and hitting audibly without seeming to impress the creature much. Instead, far nimbler than should be possible, it jumped high in the air and landed right where Grum, Nysqwen and I just scrambled to our feet, knocking us right back down again. Spurring my friends with what air I had left in my lungs, I ran back as fast as I could, out of reach of the raging beast. In the meantime, Grum had assumed the form of a large cave bear and began together with Nysqwen, eyes flaring white with rage, Teynos and Kyla’s mace to wail on our foe. Our initial shock was quickly overcome and within few heartbeats and without suffering too severe wounds, we subdued the creature. Still out of breath, Nysqwen panted that this was a bulette, a massive predator that occasionally would roam mountain regions and terrorise any farmers that dared herding their flock there. However, while ferocious and hearty beasts, they usually hunted alone, giving us some reassurance that this might be the only specimen in the immediate vicinity. Together with Grum, she removed the incredibly heavy body from our campsite, while I did my best to clean our sleeping bags and supplies from the viscous dark blood and entrails of the bulette. The rest of the night passed by without further disturbances.
 
Today brought us all the way to the cave. Around noon we faced an almost vertical cliff face, yet the obstacle was swiftly dealt with as Grum turned into a giant spider and brought up our ropes that we had combined to reach the full height, allowing us an easy ascend. All the times taking the air way back in Neverwinter paid off as not only was scaling the wall almost second nature, but Teynos and I also worked out a path that would be easier for Kyla in her heavy armour and Nysqwen who felt more secure on the shaking planks of a ship deck than in a mountain. On top of the plateau, we took a brief rest and a hearty meal, the mountains now standing high above us. The landscape had more individual trees and bushes, loose rubble, and larger boulders. The prior sounds of a living forest, creaking wood, singing birds, and roaring deer were substituted with the howling of gushes of wind, cries of eagles and the occasional faint low rumble or growl.
A little while later saw us facing the mountain side. Multiple dark cave entrances pestered the stone, some more natural looking than others. Grum pointed towards one that was almost perfectly round and whispered that these might either be dug from larger bulettes or perhaps gigantic worms that were said to tunnel through the mountains of this region. It took us a bit of careful search but eventually we found an entrance that matched the one we could see on our map.
 
Without knowing what would await us inside, we carefully approached the opening. Soon we could see flickering light emerging from within proving that we were neither the first to come here nor the only ones alive. Edging slightly further, we could make out muffled voices speaking in a tongue just one of us was able to understand yet we all had heard plenty in the recent past – orcish. This could mean either that we had found Mantka’s lost contingent or some wildly roaming orcs. And even in the first case, we would not know whether they were with us or against us. On the off chance that fighting was avoidable however, Teynos strode up to a wooden barricade blocking the entrance and addressed the occupants in their language. We had hardly time to catch up with him as the first arrows came flying. Teynos was the first to overcome the barricade, storming towards the waiting orcs and wolves, followed by Nysqwen and Grum. Kyla and I kept further to the back with the cleric summoning her mystic mace once more to wail on the greenskins.
By now I had gotten more familiar with using the illusions usually used to entertain an audience and delight or scare children to slow down our enemies, creating patterns that would hypnotise them for brief periods or confuse them enough to allow my friends a breather or an opportune strike. Grum quickly turned into his bear shape again, biting and clawing at the orcs surrounding him while Nysqwen dealt heavy blows in all directions. Teynos used his fast reflexes and nimbleness to almost appear everywhere at once, punching a chin here, kicking a groin there. Kyla sent a brief prayer to her goddess and spectral black feathers engulfed several orcs, making their movements sluggish and their hits less precise. The she closed in, grinning as she laid her hands on the first orc that just was fighting off Grum’s overwhelming strength and under her touch his body withered until only dry bones remained. Nysqwen’s eyes seemed to be the counterbalance to my own. A slight white glow emanated from her sockets, a scaled avenger whirling her polearm with greater mastery each day. Many cuts and arrows rained in on her, yet she shrugged them all off and slew orc after orc until there were none standing anymore. Occasionally, I would manage to see a connecting hit of the orcs just in time to irritate them enough to miss their intended target. One by one the orcs fell. With the last drop of blood spilled, silence returned and the glow from Nysqwen’s eyes receded.
We now stood at the entrance of a large room, lit by several braziers. In each corner on the opposite wall a tunnel continued deeper into the mountain. A quick search revealed that the orcs only had a few coins on themselves and ‘ere we could look any further, we heard a voice, much deeper and louder than that of an orc emerging from one of the tunnels. We were not in the shape to take on another battle so soon after and thus retreated from the cave to find a spot not too far from the entrance to take care of our wounds. Following an intuition, I took out Rattlepike’s old Lyra and began to play the soft harmonies that I knew could soothe the soul and aid in the recovery from strenuous activities. But a new motif emerged from the familiar pattern. It was barely there at first yet demanded more and more room for itself as it grew. Was it still I that was playing? Or merely a vessel to pluck the right strings at the right times? The new melody promised safety, it was nothing adventurous, just here to stay and accompany what other voices might be played. And after a while I could almost feel the music extending around me, filling the space around our camp site. Safety. Comfort in uncomfortable places. Home. This was what I, and I believe many of the others as well, had found in this colourful group of friends and that was what now was evolving the melodies. Even when I laid the instrument to the side and looked up, the melody was still there. Wherever you might be, Camp, you would have liked this. Very faintly yet it had created a new phenomenon. An almost invisible barrier surrounded us, sheltered us from prying eyes or intruders of any kind. This was a place of rest.
 
Once we had gathered enough strength to potentially deal with another threat, we left the comforting interior of the dome, which vanished as soon as I left it confines. Grum grabbed some dirt and drew lines over our faces once more, gathering the surrounding shadows to cloak us from unwanted attention. The carcasses of our last battle had been moved, the wolves to the left tunnel and the orcs towards the right entrance. A closer inspection revealed a rough painting on the back wall of the cave: very similar to the symbol of the Many-Arrow tribe, the emblem of the tribe that called this cave home. However, the usually black skull pierced by three arrows in this depiction was bloodred. Whatever that meant. Was it a deliberate mocking of the crest? A homage? Did the artist simply run out of colour? Kyla wanted to make sure that we knew what we were dealing with. If we would give it a night’s rest, she might be able to contact Mantka on the morrow to ask whether these were her people who we should either leave be or make contact with or if they posed a danger that should be stopped in its tracks. A very sensible suggestion, hence why we left the cave once more. We went a little further away from the entry, finding a spot that would still allow us to keep an eye on it for any movement during the night. Gladly, I gave myself to the music once more to recreate the protecting dome that should also hide us from any scouts that might be sent during the night. Thus, we are now bundled up on the inside, no need for tents with the star-studded sky above. Nysqwen has taken first watch, leaning against a fallen tree, and staring into the night. I hope sleep will find me fast. Creating a home, truly. I know, everything is make-belief; yet should there be deception in friendship? Or was this bond as well not what it seemed? But it remains so inconceivably hard…